On Wednesday, 12 Rabi’ al-Thani 1443H corresponding to 17 November 2021G, His Excellency Prof. Koutoub Moustapha Sano, Secretary General of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy (IIFA), participated in the Fourth Islamic Fintech Dialogue Conference, organized by the International Academy for Shari’a Research in Islamic Finance in Malaysia (ISRA) in partnership with the International University of Islamic Finance in Malaysia (INCEIF).

His Excellency delivered the keynote speech during the third session of the conference, in which he addressed the importance of benefiting from emerging technologies to meet the purposes of Shariah in the field of green and sustainable finance. His Excellency also expressed his happiness to participate in this important conference in terms of the topics and issues that it addresses to improve the performance of Islamic finance in the current era by enabling it to keep pace with the developments and changes taking place in this vital and important sector, and by highlighting what this type of finance contains of effective solutions to economic and financial crises and calamities.

In confirmation of this aspired role of Islamic finance, His Excellency stressed the openness of Islamic Shariah to making the most of modern means and technologies by employing them to accomplish various contemporary economic and financial activities, programs, and projects. He also called on scholars and researchers in the field of Islamic finance and economics to give the issue of financial technology what it deserves of research and study because of its direct and strong impact on the future of the contemporary Islamic financial industry. Then His Excellency pointed out that the means and tools of financial transactions in general are numerous and evolve with the development of times and eras, and shariah, being very flexible, has made these means permissible in principle, and did not oblige people to follow a specific method, but left the matter of estimating that to the circumstances of time and place, and according to need and facts that change according to place, time, situation, and condition. His Excellency added that it is necessary to refer to the purposes of Shariah related to the chapter on transactions, such as the goal of circulation, the goal of steadiness, the goal of stability, and others, when choosing the means and tools in order to select the most effective and best.

With regard to Islam’s view on green finance, His Excellency explained the importance of this type of financing, which aims to spend money in financing activities and programs that preserve the environment pure and clean and free from pollution that is harmful to life and the future of humanity on the planet. His Excellency pointed out that Islam set great rewards for those who plant trees, so that a person, animal, or bird eats from them. It is therefore permissible, from a shariah perspective, to spend zakat funds, and to allocate Awqaf and Wills for this purpose.

His Excellency concluded his speech by expressing his pleasure at the partnership between the Academy and the International Academy for Shari’a Research in Islamic Finance in Malaysia (ISRA), which organized this conference, wishing for more cooperation and coordination with all the specialized authorities in Malaysia and other member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in order to benefit from the scientific expertise and vast capacities of the Academy to achieve their goals and serve Muslims around the world.